This is an activity about the way the moon interacts with sunlight. Learners consider a ball, wrapped in aluminum foil, and experiment with a flashlight to make it appear bright. The children compare the foil-wrapped ball to a Moon globe and...(View More) discover that the Moon reflects very little of the light the falls on it, but still appears bright. The children construct their own globe of the Moon to take home with them by gluing a map template onto a tennis-ball. This activity is most effective when conducted in a dark area, such as outdoors at night or in a darkened room. This activity is part of Explore! Marvel Moon, a series of activities developed specifically for use in libraries.(View Less)

This is an activity about the tides. Learners discover how the Moon's gravitational pull causes the level of the ocean to rise and fall twice a day along most coastlines. Six children represent the oceans, solid Earth, Moon, and Sun and move their...(View More) bodies to show the interactions of these elements. They then consider what the Earth's tides might have been like if there were no Moon. They model the smaller tides that would be produced solely by the Sun. This activity is part of Explore! Marvel Moon, a series of activities developed specifically for use in libraries.(View Less)

In this lesson, students explore how eclipses happen and why Einstein needed a total eclipse to image stars near the Sun in order to demonstrate how the Sun's mass bends the light from a far away star. Using a foam ball and a lamp, learners create a...(View More) solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse, and learn more about why the moon appears differently from one night to the next. The activity needs to be done in a very dark room and requires a very bright light (e.g., a lamp without a shade) and a very dim light (e.g., like one found on a keychain). This activity is part of the Cosmic Times teachers guide and is intended to be used in conjunction with the 1919 Cosmic Times Poster.(View Less)